Redefining Housing with Robotics

Canada made its housing crisis. It just may manufacture its way out of it, too.

Intelligent City merges architecture and construction with advanced manufacturing, transforming housing into factory-produced products.

The robotic arm clutches a panel of timber. It grazes just above another layer of timber. In short order, it locates its final resting site and presses it into place.

This robotic arm, inside Intelligent City’s factory in lower mainland, British Columbia, could be the missing link to righting Canada’s demand for housing. This robotic arm is what OD Krieg, Chief Technology Officer of Intelligent City, calls, “the productization of housing.”

He says we as a society have long standing beliefs about construction that are getting in the way of efficiency. And he sees enormous potential for innovation. “For the past 150 years, the industry has relied on manual, fragmented, and sometimes chaotic ways of working,” says Krieg. (Anyone who’s ever visited a few construction sites knows that this is likely a charitable characterization.) It has led to stagnant productivity for the last 75 years. Contrast that to agriculture, which has seen a sixteen-fold increase in productivity over the same period. Modern structures give the illusion of advancement but the process to create them is essentially the same.

That’s because building residential structures remains an ornately custom-made process: a developer approaches an architect, who submits designs to a construction company, who finds a way to build this custom design the best they can to match the original plan.

But plans change. The materials might not work in certain applications. And the design might not even be fully possible. There is endless back-and-forth between designers and builders to solve problems. Then it goes back to developers, who funnel amendments to the city departments that issue building permits. It takes years and years to create a multi-family dwelling when the need is urgent.

The infinite ways to build presents infinite obstacles to affordability and speed.

“It’s no different than buying a custom-made motorbike. You go to a custom shop, get the frame and handlebars made just the way you want, and choose every little detail for months on end, and you might pay $100,000 for it,” he says. “But you could also spend $30,000 at the BMW dealer, choose a colour and an engine, and drive away tomorrow. We’re doing that but for housing.”

Productizing multi-family homes can also be more sustainable. As with anything in advanced manufacturing, the process is designed to eliminate waste. A factory creates a product with as little raw material as possible. And that material is increasingly mass timber. It can be selectively harvested, it’s easy to work with, and it can span 12-18 stories to provide a mid-rise building that can house hundreds of people.

It sounds simple now, but the gap the company faced was in manufacturing. With the robotics and architecture brain trust already in house, NGen stepped in to help Intelligent City create its first pilot plant. Funding this advanced manufacturing capability, which creates everything from floors and beams to walls, was the lynchpin of the company. “NGen was huge for us,” says Krieg. “They helped us complete our first automated facility with a robotic milling centre, which ultimately helped us win our first contracts with developers.”